Bucks jury convicts Enoch Smith of rape, promoting prostitution

It was a swift and resounding guilty verdict Thursday in the case of a Philadelphia pimp who used Bensalem motels to exploit drug-addicted women in an illegal sex-for-money operation.

A Bucks County jury in Doylestown deliberated for less than an hour before finding Enoch Smith, 36, guilty of 14 crimes, including rape, promoting prostitution and drug delivery.

Smith did not react as the verdict was read. He did not answer questions as he left the courtroom and made an obscene hand gesture at a reporter.

“I’m very pleased with the verdict today,” said deputy district attorney Jennifer Schorn. “It was obvious that the members of the jury went through the evidence and were swift with their verdict, but they were also methodical.”

The verdict capped a four-day trial in which four women, including two from Solebury, testified that Smith charged men as much as $180 an hour to have sex with them, then paid them in heroin and crack cocaine.

The women said Smith knew they were heroin addicts and exploited their addiction to make money. They said they quickly became dependent on Smith, who meted out their drugs depending on how many “dates” they completed, and made them grovel and perform sex acts on him when they needed drugs and didn’t bring in enough customers.

One of the women, a 19-year-old Huntingdon Valley resident, said Smith raped her when she refused to continue selling her body after performing only two dates.

Smith denied the charges. He took the stand Thursday morning, against his attorney’s advice, and spent more than an hour bobbing and weaving around witness testimony.

In a rambling, one-hour statement that was not interrupted by his defense lawyer, Harry Cooper, Smith explained that the money police found in his pockets when he was arrested in March 2012 was from a five-day casino blackjack streak, and that he needed the hundreds of condoms recovered from his car because he was extremely sexually active.

“I’m a man and I have sex, and I strap up,” he told the jury.

Smith talked on and on about his living situation at the time of his arrest, claiming that he was staying at motels because he was waiting for a rental home to be ready, not because he was using the rooms for his illegal business.

He described his two cars, mentioning one’s 22-inch wheel rims at least five times, saying police “profiled” him because he drove flashy vehicles.

Smith became emotional at one point, appearing to weep as he talked about the women who frequent the drug-infested area of Kensington. He told the jury that he knew that people victimize women battling addiction.

“There’s people in that neighborhood who prey on those girls, you know what I’m saying? They prey on those girls ‘cause they sick, and they got to have it.”

Smith said he was “surprised” when he was accused of being a pimp.

“To me, a pimp is from TV, from the ‘60s and ‘70s. I don’t think they exist any more,” he said. “I’m thinking to myself, where is this coming from?”

He admitted knowing the women who accused him, and said he thought they worked for an online escort service.

“To me, escorting, as I looked at it then, was legitimate ... because it was on the Internet.”

Smith said that he was protecting one of the women from a stalker, and he believed the stalker framed him.

“Basically trying to make me out to be a monster,” he said.

When Schorn confronted Smith about the laptop police found in his car, which contained 1,500 photos — mostly of scantily clad women and online classified sex ad sites, but also of him — Smith said the computer wasn’t his.

When she showed him a notebook, also recovered from his car, which had an email address made up of his nickname and date of birth scrawled in it, as well as the password “escort76,” he said he suspected someone had created the email information to get him in trouble.

“Somebody was trying to create one for me, ‘cause I don’t play on the Internet,” he said.

Smith also accused police of beating him up while he was being arrested.

In her closing statement to the jury, Schorn said Smith was a smart businessman who knew that selling women was less risky and more profitable than selling drugs.

“They are commodities. They are assets. They made him money,” she said.

Schorn told the jury that the four women who testified against Smith had no reason to lie, and reminded the panel that the victims were guaranteed the same protection under the law as any other person, even if they did engage in drug use and prostitution.

Cooper, Smith’s attorney, urged the jury to stick to the facts and not be biased by sympathy or hate. He said the witnesses were not credible, saying the woman who accused Smith of rape lied because she was worried about being arrested for prostitution.

“She lies when it’s convenient for her, when she wants something,” Cooper said.

Smith will be sentenced in about 90 days, following a Megan’s Law evaluation, and could serve more than 40 years in a state prison.

He is tentatively scheduled to stand trial in June in federal court, for allegedly prostituting a 15-year-old girl and creating child pornography. The federal charges carry a potential life term.

The case has been closely watched by victim advocates who say it proves that human trafficking occurs in the suburbs. A task force on the issue is being organized in Bucks.

After the verdict was read, Bucks County Judge Wallace Bateman told the jurors that they made the right call.

“For what it’s worth, I think you reached an appropriate verdict,” he said.

Cooper declined to comment after the verdict.

Schorn praised Bensalem police for cracking the case, and said the women who testified were extremely brave.

“They showed the strength to be present and confront their abuser in court, and for that I’m very grateful.”